Objective To establish the distribution of 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk among Chinese adults. Methods We estimated the 10-year ASCVD risk by applying the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association pooled cohort equations (PCEs) to the data obtained from the 2010 China Chronic Disease and Risk Factor Surveillance that involved 61,541 participants (representing 520,158,652 Chinese adults) aged 40-79 years. We also compared the ASCVD risk with the 10-year ischemic cardiovascular disease (ICVD) risk, which was calculated using the simplified scoring tables recommended by the Chinese Guidelines for Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases (Chinese model). Results Based on the PCEs, the average 10-year ASCVD risk among adults without self-reported stroke or myocardial infraction was 12.5%. Approximately 247 million (47.4%) and 107 million (20.6%) adults had >= 7.5% and > 20% 10-year ASCVD risks, respectively. The 10-year ASCVD risk > 20% was higher among men, less educated individuals, smokers, drinkers, and physically inactive individuals than among their counterparts. Overall, 29.0% of adults categorized using the Chinese model were overclassified with the PCEs. Conclusion Our results define the distribution of 10-year ASCVD risk among Chinese adults. The 10-year ASCVD risk predicted by the PCEs was higher than the ICVD risk predicted by the Chinese model.